News, events, commentary

A fire began during the repair of the roof of Building 102 of the Aleksandrov Research Institute of Nuclear Technology (RINT, Russian abbreviation is NITI) on May 31, 2016 at about 14:00. The building that caught on fire is a pressurized water nuclear reactor, safety-testing modes Russian nuclear submarines.

One of the areas of state policy in the sphere of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel management is provision of environmental safety for the population. On the basis of general legal principles the state policy of Russia in the sphere of radioactive waste (RW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management should not contradict the fundamental rights and legitimate interests of its citizens. The right to favourable environment, ecological and radiation safety, sustainable use of natural resources belongs both to the current and future generations. These rights are legally important and they must determine the essence of adopted normative acts. For this purpose the state policy of RW and SNF management cannot contradict the national environmental policy.

On March 3, this year, a participant of the Leningrad AES-2 construction (this nuclear plant has to succeed the ancient 40 years old Leningrad AES-1) gave an extensive devastating press conference on this nuclear project construction in the Leningrad region. Victor Aleynikov is a professional builder with an extensive work experience at atomic plants construction sites. As he states there are so many infringements, miscalculations, frauds at the project construction that one can hardly enumerate them. It is likely that the «Ostrovets» NPP in Belarus is being constructed in the same incompetent way and the same surprises can be expected at the “Hankikivi” nuclear power plant being built by “Rosatom” in Finland. Ordinary Finns are discussing this construction project in social networks, namely in the Facebook, very violently. What is happening on the nuclear projects of “Rosatom”? Who is building them and how?

I ask you with the participation of independent experts to initiate a full investigation of the facts stated in the open letter of the construction worker of Leningrad NPP-2 Victor Petrovich Aleinikov, a "veteran of nuclear energy and industry" of Russia.

Titan-2 Group, the general contractor of the construction of Leningrad NPP-2, initiated legal process against Victor Aleynikov Russian veteran of the nuclear industry and environmental NGO Green World (GW). This was reported March 26 by news agency Regnum http://regnum.ru/news/society/2105793.html. (russian)

One of the biggest secrets in the Soviet society was its closed towns. Some of them were well known, but others were so secret that they did not seem to exist. Existing towns that were turned into a closedtown ceased to exist on maps. In other places big towns grew up without any trace on maps or any other official records. Very few except those who lived there knew about their existence. Often they were known to the outside world only by their postcode, for example Krasnoyarsk-26, which stands for Zheleznogorsk.Read the booklet hier

This report is written with invaluable help from Naturvernforbundet’s Russian partners. It has been a challenge to finalize the work, as new organizations have been labelled Foreign Agents constantly, and as there is a constant flow of new information, news articles and analyses regarding the Foreign Agent law, and also on the law on Undesirable Organizations. Deadline for our collection of information was set on December 2nd 2015, when our partner organization Green World was formally listed as Foreign Agent in the register of the Ministry of Justice. We express our gratitude to the Ministry of Climate and Environment as well as to the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority. Their support enables Naturvernforbundet to follow the situation around the civil society development in Russia, and help us make the information we have public.Read the report

An emergency stop of the second power unit of Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant took place on Friday, December 18, at 13:50. The reason for the stop and cooling of the reactor was a sudden leak of radioactive steam from a faulty pipe in one of the rooms of the turbine shop.

On November 16th 2015, at 13:15 in the nuclear town Sosnovyj Bor on the Baltic Sea coast, 40 km from the St. Petersburg, representatives of the Leningrad Region Department of the Ministry of Justice of Russian Federation handed the environmental Non Governmental Organization (NGO) Green World (GW) an Act on the results of an unscheduled on-site inspection of the organization.

The Committee of Ecology of the Parliamentary Association of the Northwest of Russia
approved at its meeting in St. Petersburg on November 2, 2015 the composition of its Working Group to prepare proposals for the consideration of interests of regions impacted by decommissioning of nuclear power plants.

The final halt and decommissioning of the world's oldest RBMK-1000 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (LNPP) is planned for 2018. The oldest operating power units with VVER-440 nuclear power plants at the Kola NPP, the same age as LAES, will be decommissioned in the future in the Murmansk region. The Northwest Federal District of Russia will be the first to solve the complex problems associated with the decommissioning of energy units, final disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The experience in solving the complex problems of the decommissioning of these nuclear power plants can be replicated in other federal districts of Russia and in other countries.

The State Corporation Rosatom plans to build item disposal of radioactive waste (CDEP) in the town of Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad region. Voluntary environmental organizations, area residents and local authorities are concerned about the prospect of nuclear burial ground near their house.

On March 19 in St. Petersburg, the Standing Committee on Ecology of the Parliamentary Association of the Northwest of Russia held a regular meeting of the heads of environmental committees (commissions) of legislative bodies of the Northwest of Russia.

Five young adventurers of St. Petersburg demonstrated the possibility of entering without problem the site of Leningrad NPP-2 that is under construction. The first of the four units of the VVER-1200 and the two cooling towers of 170 m in height are planned to being use next year. Now, in the final stage of construction, terrorists might have brought in explosives that could then be used when the station will work. Such an approach by terrorists was implemented several years ago in Chechnya. Then in an explosion the president of Chechnya died.

it is a title of fact-sheet which was edited by Green World with support of Coalition Clean Baltic (CCB) in the end of 2013.
Luga River is only one salmon river in the Russian part of the Baltic Sea where natural reproduction of wild Atlantic salmon still occurs. The Luga River has a huge potential for more successful development of wild salmon, its potential as a salmon river is used by only 15-20%.
This fact sheet describes the situation for the salmon now in 2013 and actions needed to improve the stock.

The model of cooperation between authorities, nuclear industry and public discussed in St. Petersburg in the frame of International Round Table Discussion, March 12.
There are participated the representatives of the authorities, nuclear industry, scientists and public from Russia, USA. After the discussion, the participants adopted the resolution with the recommendations to all stakeholders of the decision making process of the nuclear facilities.

A Statement of Non-Goverment Organizations of Russia
For several decades spent nuclear fuel from European countries and from European Russia has been transferred for storage to the Gorno-khimicheskii kombinat (GKhK) factory (in the closed city of Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory) and to Mayak (in the closed city of Ozersk, Chelyabinsk region). To date, a gigantic amount of nuclear materials and radioactive substances has accumulated here. In the minds of the residents of Europe, the impression is that such a transfer to closed, opaque cities in the Urals and Siberia is a safe solution to the problems. This is not so!

We, representatives of non-government organizations, are writing to you in regard to the potential danger for present and future generations of the Krasnoyarsk Region in implementing the strategy of the transfer of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from Central European countries and the European part of Russia to Siberia (Federal State Unitary Enterprise Mining and Chemical Plant, Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Region).

All 58 French nuclear reactors of the 19 French nuclear power plants do not meet post-Fukushima safety requirements. This basic conclusion of stress tests of French nuclear power plants by the European Union (EU) was published October 1 in the French newspaper Le Monde. http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/10/01/les-defaillances-de-securite-des-19-centrales-nucleaires-francaises-pointees-par-bruxelles_1768510_3244.html

The cooperating organizations in the Decommissioning Network have as their main goal to convince the Russian government to start the decommission process of the oldest and most dangerous nuclear power plants. The present official Russian policy is to expand the number of nuclear power stations with new constructions and giving the existing old nuclear reactors lifetime extensions beyond their design life-time limit. This is working contrary to the goal of our project.

In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

This thesis has become one of the topics of discussion during the recent (June 29) meeting of Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, with representatives of civil society in St. Petersburg. Oleg Bodrov, leader of Green World, noted that the import into Russia of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from Europe is in accordance with the Russian-American agreement on nuclear non-proliferation.

The below-signed Russian and Norwegian environmental NGOs oppose increased electricity trade between Russia and western countries, as long as common environmental and safety standards are absent. We urge the Finnish government to stop future import of nuclear electricity from the new Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant-2 (LNPP-2) in Russia. This import will be facilitated by the new power cable between Sosnovy Bor (St. Petersburg region, Russia) and Vyborg (Russia).

In preparing spent nuclear fuel (SNF) for purposes of transporting it to Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk region, Siberia, Russia), Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (LNPP) cut into two parts one of the 40,000 fuel assemblies. Because of a lack of preparation for the difficult and dangerous operation, depressurization of the assembly and contamination of equipment took place.
This made it impossible for continuation of the work without risk of contamination of the environment and personnel.

An unknown man in a black tracksuit and a black cloth mask with slits for eyes, quietly crept into an empty place, and struck a blow to Alexander in the back of his head from behind with a baseball bat. Alexander fell to the ground and for a moment lost consciousness. The assailant managed to make about 10 blows with the bat as Alexander tried to get up. At one point the victim managed to knock the bat out of the hands of the attacker with a bag of garbage was lying beside him. After receiving an unexpected response, the assailant fled, taking the bat.

The Basmanny Court of Moscow has refused to consider a complaint of the physicist and ecologist Oleg Bodrov to Russian State Nuclear Regulatory Body - Rostekhnadzor (RTN), in which the applicant challenged the legality and safety solutions to extend the operation of the fourth unit of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (LNPP) with its RBMK-1000 reactor. Issued on December 26, 2010, the RTN license extends the operational life of LNPP from 30 to 45 years! That is the world's oldest nuclear power plants with reactors of the Chernobyl series of plans to operate until 2026.

Preliminary materials of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for a site for the disposal of radioactive waste have arrived at the administration of Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad Region http://www.mayak.sbor.net/node/15822.
According to these documents on the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland, 40 km west of the boundary of St. Petersburg, up to 250 000 cubic meters of radioactive waste (RW) will be buried.
It is about 100 km from Finland and 50 km from Estonia.

On Friday, October 7, between 17:00 and 18:00 an explosion occurred at the blast furnace ECOMET-S - a factory for melting radioactive scrap metal. This was reported by telephone to Green World by Natalya Malevannaya - head of the environmental management and security administration of Sosnovy Bor. A worker was burned by metal from the blast. He has second and third degree burns. He was taken to the Institute of Emergency Care named I.I Janelidze in St. Petersburg. There is hope that he will live.

There is almost no chance of winning. Russian courts are politicized and serve the current government. This government has proclaimed the development of nuclear energy as a national strategy. The goal of Green World is to inform the Russian public and Baltic countries about the impending danger. The essence of the threat is not neither a systemic, nor comprehensive assessment of threats to the extension of the operation of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (LNPP) has taken place on the part of the nuclear safety regulators of Rostakhnadzor.

It has been 10 years since the decision to decommission the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP). Two of the most powerful, but not the oldest, of the energy blocs of the Chernobyl series (RBMK-1500) total capacity 3.000 MW were stopped in the last days of 2004 and in 2009, and became the first to have taken the path of decommissioning.

International NGO Decommision Network apeal to European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to stop support of the transportation of the spent nuclear fuel to Mayak reprocessing facility (Ural region. Russia). May 20 2011 Oleg Bodrov presented a position paper about this problem to EBRD representative. The presentation of the Position Paper and a documentary Wasteland was during the EBRD Anual meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan.

A combination of past nuclear accidents and the accumulation of wastes from more than six decades of nuclear activities at the site have made the area surrounding Mayak one of the most contaminated in the world, with significant concentrations of strontium, cesium and plutonium found within a 100-kilometer — or 60-mile — radius of the facility.

The RA Research Reactor is located at the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences near Belgrade, Serbia. The reactor is a 6.5MWt, tank-type, heavy water moderated and cooled research reactor of Russian design which commenced operation in 1959. After being temporarily shutdown in 1984 for refurbishment, a final shutdown decision was made in 2002. At present, operations are underway to safely remove and repatriate the spent fuel to the Russian Federation (RF), as well as to improve radioactive waste management and plan for decommissioning. As a major activity within the Vinča Institute Nuclear Decommissioning (VIND) Program, the repatriation of over 8,000 fuel elements containing 2.5 tons of uranium metal will significantly reduce nuclear proliferation and environmental safety risks confronting the current facility. Poor water quality in the spent fuel storage basins and degraded fuel integrity significantly challenge efforts to repackage and transport the spent fuel. This paper will focus in the activities related to spent fuel repackaging and shipment, report on progress, detail significant challenges, and provide an overview of the fully integrated project.

December 6, 2010 German Government stopped the transportation to Russia the German spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from research reactor. But the new portion of the nuclear waste from Europe on the way to Russia.
This flow of nuclear death is growing!
At present SNF from research reactors from Poland and Latvia are being moved for reprocessing at the Mayak site in Chelyabinsk Oblast Russia.

We, the representatives of the public organizations, appeal to you to support our protest against the 1000 spent nuclear rods to be transferred to Russia from the Centre of Nuclear Research in Rossendorf (Germany).
We consider this threat to the security of people and nature the Baltic region as well as all areas along the transportation route of these dangerous goods, and in particular, for residents and nature of the ultimate destination - the Chelyabinsk region, which is already the most radiation contaminated region of the world.

To the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry A. Medvedev,
German Counsellor, Angela Merkel,
US President Barak Obama,
Secretary General of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano
We, the representatives of the public organizations, appeal to you in the International Day of Radioactive Waste, September 29, 2010.
We protest against the 1000 nuclear waste rods transfer to Russia from the Centre of Nuclear Research in Rossendorf (Germany).

By 2015 Russia will put into operation 20-25% less power capacity than originally had been planned several years ago. This reduction will affect nuclear power plants to a large extent. In the coming 5 years the power of nuclear power plants will be introduced at a level that is 2.5 times less than projected by government plans. This was reported on 23 March 2010 by the newspaper Vedomosti http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2010/03/23/228863 referring to the Ministry of Energy of Russia).

Brussels is against member states exporting their nuclear waste to countries outside the EU or to store it in joint sites, energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger said, as the commission is working on a set of common safety standards for this dangerous material.

An American geographer and Russian ecologist discuss current and prospective environmental hazards precipitated by large-scale infrastructure projects on Russia's southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. The region, investigated by both authors during the course of regular field research from 1999 to 2009, is one of the best environmentally preserved coastlines of the Baltic Sea with abundant potential greenfield sites, largely due to its closed-border-zone status during the Soviet period. A favorable location for trade also places the region under intense development pressure. The authors devote particular attention to two major developments, a multifunctional port complex (which inter alia serves as a major pipeline terminus and oil export port) and expansion of an existing nuclear power plant. Based on extensive personal observations and government documents, they analyze the emerging environmental threat posed by these initiatives as well as the challenging political environment that discourages public participation and local involvement in spatial planning.

News published in the article the journalist Av Mímir Kristjánsson in the Norwegian newspaper Klassenkampen (Class Struggle) from 03.02.2010 :
The Norwegian Government has established a Committee, which recommends that Norwegian nuclear waste be sent to the Mayak plant in Russia.

On 1 February, at 02:12 at night the Russian vessel Kapitan Kuroptev docked at the 40th slip of the port of St. Petersburg, delivering from France 650 tons of nuclear waste. After the transfer of the containers to the railway platforms, the dangerous freight was transported through St. Petersburg toward Siberia, to the closed city of Seversk near Tomsk.

In the name of the NGOs of Russia, we express our decisive protest against the provocation which has targeted the environmental NGO “Baikal Environmental Wave.” We demand an objective investigation and punishment of the provocateurs.

On 9 December 2009 Rosenergoatom (Russian NPPs operator) gave notice of the granting by Rostekhnadzor (Russian NPPs regulator) of the license for the third energy bloc, thereby extending the life of the Leningrad NPP until 31 January 2025. This is 15 years longer than the designers of these reactors planned.
The decision was taken behind closed doors, without public hearings, without an analysis of the possible alternative solutions of the energy problem. An environmental impact assessment, required by law, was not conducted.

On 31 December 2009 at 23.00 Victor Shevaldin, Director of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) will give the command to turn off the second and last energy bloc with reactor type RBMK-1500 with a power of 1500 MW. In this way, a NPP with the two largest-in-the-world energy blocs of Chernobyl-type will forever stop generating electricity.

In early November2009 in Vienna at the annual expert meeting of government bodies of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a speech was delivered by Oleg Bodrov, a representative of Decommission which is an international network of NGOs aimed at advancing safe and responsible decommissioning of NPPs www.decomatom.org.ru . The presentation http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddbmhwkk_577hg9tp9cr&interval=5 of the Russian citizen drew a considerable response. However, Oleg Bodrov addressed the meeting on behalf of … Norway. It happened due to the refusal of the Russian government to nominate the invited NGO representative for participation in the IAEA Forum.

We, representatives of non-governmental international organization (NGO) “Coalition Clean Baltic” (CCB), appeal to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and the Governor of Leningrad Oblast to support the proposals of Russians NGOs and initiative group of Primorsk city to relocate the shipyard from the woodland park in Primorsk, which is part of a green area with significant nature conservation and recreational values, to the industrial area of the Primorsk.

Reducing Consumption of Natural Gas in the Republic of Belarus: Nuclear and Innovation Scenarios: monograph. / DECOMATOM – an International Network of the non-governmental organizations for the investigation international experience for the safety decommission of nuclear power plants

Storage of more than 35.000 spent fuel rods from LNPP, for which there is no economically or ecologically justifiable reprocessing technology. In effect this is more than 4.000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste, requiring isolation from environment for more than 100 thousand years;
Alexandrov Research Institute of Nuclear Technology with several military reactors from nuclear submarines;

NON-GOVERNMENT ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS PROTEST AGAINST THE PLANS OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SECOND LINE OF THE LENINGRAD NUCLEAR POWER PLANT (LNPP-2)
We consider it to be poor judgment under conditions of financial-economic crisis and a decline in demand for electric energy to invest huge government resources in the construction of a new nuclear power plant. Russia uses its electric energy extremely inefficiently. Measures of efficiency will allow more ecological and economic improvement than the construction of a nuclear power plant.

In 2008, Rosatom Federal Atomic Energy Agency promulgated the bill On Radioactive Waste Management. This is one of the first attempts on the part of the agency of state administration to organize a broad discussion of an important law in the field of nuclear energy use.

In the context of the ongoing administrative reform of governmental authorities in the Russian Federation the powers of atomic agency increase. In 2008, Rosatom State Corporation was established, which incorporated all companies, operating in the nuclear industry both in military and civilian sectors. Moreover, this corporation performs state functions of regulating the whole Russian nuclear complex.

In the coming years Russian society will have to solve the complex and inevitable problem of decommissioning NPPs, which have reached the design lifecycle limit. The present generation of nuclear power consumers should not export the decommissioning problem solution to future generations.
The Decommissioning Plan should secure t

Nuclear power is back in vogue in Russia, with 26 new reactors scheduled for construction by 2030. German industrial giant Siemens has grabbed a piece of the pie. But safety and financial concerns threaten to overshadow the country's atomic ambitions.

Fran Macy was an American environmental educator who devoted his life to
the struggle for nuclear disarmament, sustainable energy development and
the advancement of deep ecology - the understanding that humans are simply
one part of our living planet. Macy, who has died aged 81, believed we must
take care of the planet's health as we would our own, and combine the
efforts of social movements across the globe, especially in Russia and the
US.

The problem of eutrophication is very actual both for the Baltic proper and shallow waters of little bays. Shallow waters are very sensitive to all kinds of anthropogenous influences. Oil spills, heavy metals, radionuclide contamination, etc. following increased recreation loading.

The first nuclear power unit based on water-cooled graphite-moderated High Capacity Channel type nuclear Reactors on thermal neutrons (Russian acronym RBMK-1000) having 1000 MW electric capacity was put into operation at LNPP in December 22,1973.

The article in Finnish right wing newspaper Uusi Suomi, March 29, 2009 about Russian radioactive waste import from Germany. Oleg Bodrov - NGO Green World chairman declared "the state declares the area secret and thus the people in the city and the local government at left outside the decision making."

About 30 members of St. Petersburg’s ecological organizations protested on Thursday the transportation of nuclear waste from other countries to Russia.
“No to the Import of Nuclear Waste!” read the slogan held by a group of ecologists in front of Avtovo metro station — the area of the city through which trains transporting nuclear waste from Europe usually pass.

Baltic Newsletter # 103

Russian Port of Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland will transship radioactive and nuclear waste shipped to Russia via the Baltic Sea. A political decision about it was taken by the Government of Russia in 2003 (Decree № 1491-r of 14 October 2003). Its actual implementation is starting now.

We are terribly sad to inform you that Fran Macy, the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Safe Energy, died yesterday, January 20th. He watched the inauguration of Barack Obama with great pride and happiness. Then he lay down for a rest and died of a heart attack in his own bed.

The East-West Network is an association of NGOs and left-wing parties from the East and West of Europe and the Nordic countries. The Network has existed for four years and is serving to facilitate and coordinate European green-left exchange and collaboration on subjects of common interest. The Network has so far focused on environmental issues, on gender equality, and labour market conditions, as well as on human rights. In these fields the Network has generated cross-national initiatives and international cooperation on political level and grass-roots level.

Our dear Russian colleague, Lydia Popova, has passed away. Lydia has been our colleague for more than 10 years, doing invaluable work on a number of subjects connected with nuclear safety issues and other energy related issues.

The Rosatom Public Council session which took place on 28th February was dedicated to the review of suggestions made by the non-governmental organisations regarding the concept of decommissioning of nuclear power units that have currently passed their operating lifetimes.

On May 29 in the center of St. Petersburg, on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Malaia Sadovaia streets, a protest demonstration was held by environmental NGOs Bellona (St. Petersburg), Ecodefense (Moscow) and Green World (Sosnovy Bor – St. Petersburg).

img src="/sites/default/greenfiles/imagepicker/s/shabarin/nuclear_baltic.jpg" width=100 style="float: left;" />One hundred and eighty kilometers of the South Coast of the Gulf of Finland (SCGF) between the Narva River (Russia-EU border) and St. Petersburg connect unique natural complexes. It has three nature-protected territories, reserves Kotelsky, Kurgalsky Peninsula and Lebiazhy. Two last-mentioned are wetland reserves having international status.
Indigenous population of SCGF, Russians and Ingermanland people (Finno-Ugric tribes Izhora and Vod’) lived in balance with nature, their traditional activities were fishing and agriculture.